Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

Lanxon writes "Wired followed US Army Staff Sergeant Kevin Rosner into Afghanistan to see first-hand the tools, tactics, and pressures involved in coordinating military airstrikes. This lengthy piece explores the people and technology involved in high-risk airborne warfare, from their perspective. From the article: 'Strapped to his chest, Rosner carries a handheld video player called a "Rover," built by L3 Communications, a New York-based defense contractor. The device, the size and shape of a PSP game console and costing tens of thousands of dollars, reads signals transmitted by the camera pods strapped to the underside of all NATO fighter aircraft. With his Rover, Rosner can see everything a pilot sees, from the pilot's perspective. On his back he carries a radio programmed with secure frequencies that tie him directly to the pilots overhead and to his unit's headquarters, several miles away. At the headquarters, another JTAC monitors a bigger, more sophisticated video terminal that displays the same video Rosner sees, plus other data.'"

As an Army qualified and certified JFO, let me just say that Air Force JTACs are some very highly trained individuals, many of which who could easily work for the FAA (as airspace deconfliction is one of their primary jobs and they're damn good at it). Close Air Support, or any sort of Fires Support for that matter, are very stressful and complicated tasks, and if your calculations or designation are wrong, 2000lb JDAMs can easily end up coming down on the heads of either friendlies or non-coms.

The Joint Service Joint Fires Observer course itself is no joke, and I can only imagine what type of training the JTACs themselves go through, but I have a very good idea.

WWII at least made some sense. You had two military-expansionist powers that were attempting to gobble up their parts of the world. Pitching in to stop their dangerous and violent expansion was definitely worth doing.

To suggest that any of the conflicts that we have been involved in since then has risen to either the level of urgency or clarity of need as WWII is laughable.

Really? at what time did Germany attack the USA or get close to attacking the USA??? Japan attacked a USA base on a USA protected island. That was the only part of WWII we should have been in. We had no right to go to Europe.

I'm not American so my understanding of this may be a little off, but didn't Germany and Italy first declare war on the US due to a mutual defense treaty with Japan after the US declared war on Japan.

If so, for the US war with Germany was pretty much inevitable after Japan attacked the

Your historical perspective and current understanding of the situation are both deeply flawed. I've met pilots in all divisions of the military, and none of them are bad at what they do. Going around saying "everyone" is better than the airforce, the UNDEFEATED airforce, is a little bit disingenuous. Can you fly a F15? How about a F22? Can you even fly a Cessna? Then what makes you qualified to even judge these pilots?

Granted, Airforce pilots are a lot more likely to be flying Air tankers and transports, than anything else, but that doesn't make them inferior. In fact with out them, you'd find you are in a totally different war. Firepower blows stuff up, logistics win the war.

Can you fly a F15? How about a F22? Can you even fly a Cessna? Then what makes you qualified to even judge these pilots?

Wall street "quants" have changed the financial game without knowing finance. Many pro sports scouts were never good enough to play professionally, but are the best in the world at judging talent that they don't have. There are a billion examples that your opinion that only a pilot can judge a pilot is dead wrong. Most people trot out this type of argument when they want to forcefully shut down an argument that they are going to lose, so it has a "smell" of weakness when used.

BTW, if your reasoning was solid, then who would decide the best course of treatment for patient with severe brain injuries? Would we have to ask the few gorillas that know sign language how to treat gorillas? Would children decide what gets taught in school?

I don't know how you're defining "the best," or why. Certainly, taking off from a carrier is more difficult than taking off from a runway, but after that what's the difference? Each service's air branch has its strengths and specialties.

I'm not sure what airman ran over your dog, but you seem to have quite an axe to grind. I would certainly like to hear you tell Curtis LeMay or Robin Olds that they weren't in a real service.

By the way, when you say you can "deliver payloads anywhere in the world" - I assume you mean, after the USAF has achieved air superiority? And while the USAF provides your information through AWACS/JSTARS?

We ALL have a job to do; people need to get over their service rivalry and realize that.

Sweet jesus - you're being particularly dense. The Navy, the Marines, and the Army all establish air superiority in each of their respective theaters without any intervention by the Air Force. On the contrary - the air force is incapable of establishing a beachhead any place at all. They have to wait on the other services to provide air strips and all the support necessary for a forward base.

If you're going to argue uninformed points of view, I suggest arguing them with someone who hasn't spent the better part of the last year studying airpower.:)

The Army is incapable of establishing air superiority; their aviation assets consist entirely of cargo, recon, and rotary-wing aircraft. While the Navy and Marines operate fighter-type aircraft, the Marines focus more on close air support of Marine units, and the Navy focuses more on fleet defense. (The Navy has the capability of performing SEAD missi

How good do you have to be to shoot down rusty Soviet cast-offs and bomb weddings? The US air-force is probably the safest job in military history.

It's safe because we are that good. Let me give you a little perspective on what it takes to get into a fighter cockpit these days. I'll keep it simple and give you my own personal story of getting there. My ROTC class started with 80. Of that, only 15 graduated and became officers in the Air Force (19%). Of those 15, 4 of us received pilot slots (26%). At initial flight screening, 16/20 graduated and were able to go to Undergraduate Pilot Training (80%). At pilot training, 11/14 students in my flight made it through primary training (79%). 1 of those 11, me, was selected for T-38s (Fighter/Bomber track) (9%). And in my T-38 class of 6 people, we might see 2 fighters (more likely 1) (17%).

So through my own personal path, 5/1000 people who try, will make it into a fighter cockpit.

reads signals transmitted by the camera pods strapped to the underside of all NATO fighter aircraft. With his Rover, Rosner can see everything a pilot sees, from the pilot's perspective

emphasis mine

Um... no, not quite the pilot's perspective. (Arguably, it's actually a better picture of the terrain beneath the nose of the aircraft than the pilot sees. But it's not the pilot's perspective- at least, I hope not!)

If the pilot has access to the same video in the cockpit, then they both see the same thing on their respective screens. So he would in fact, see what the pilot sees. It is just that the scope of what is seen is narrow and ambiguous in the summary.

I love all the self-promotional talk about how awesome these weapons are, I'd love to see what would happen when they deploy their unencrypted video streams and "secure" radio transmitters against an enemy that at least have weapon systems designed in the last 20 years. These "secure frequencies" would be like a huge flashing beacon when fighting an enemy that doesn't rely on AK-47s and blending in with the civilian population.

So you think you know something about signals intelligence? Intercepts, decryption, code-breaking? I doubt it. Sure, you can use a modern "radar" detector to spot UAV control link frequencies, but that isn't going to get you any closer to breaking whatever control scheme is in place. It is naive at best to think that modern military hardware isn't using crypto hardware that out paces anything you've ever heard of.

Could another modern military force find, intercept and maybe understand or at least inte

1) A large number of UAVs were found to be transmitting their video streams completely unencrypted.

2) I didn't mention cracking the encryption, I did however use the description "huge flashing beacon" which implied that when facing an enemy that's not stuck in the middle ages it may not be such a good idea to have troops in the field use radio communication at all unless absolutely necessary since the radio signals will be "like a huge flashing beacon" to the enemy who will be able to figure out where the t

when facing an enemy that's not stuck in the middle ages it may not be such a good idea to have troops in the field use radio communication at all unless absolutely necessary since the radio signals will be "like a huge flashing beacon" to the enemy who will be able to figure out where the troops are

So you deploy decoys - other beacons to smoke them out. Shouldn't be impossible to make the illlusion convincing. Firing on the decoy exposes their new position.

And they'd do the same. This would not be a bunch of unorganized rebels with AK-47s and a few RPGs, it wouldn't even be the personal army of some tinpot dictator, it would be a real army with modern equipment and proper training.

It's very handy to be able to destroy a target with hundreds of thousands of dollars of missiles from thousands of miles away. It is, unfortunately, very cheap to buy rocket launchers in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they can change position in minutes: they're natives, they live there, they can leave weapons on the ground and walk away while the next few guerrillas take up arms and start shooting. And it's cheap to train up a few idiots to pop up on a rooftop, shoot weapons, and run away: the Afghans developed

Our focus definitely needs to be on AI weapons because it's the only thing that can react fast enough in those situations. Someone pops up on a rooftop like you say and fires a shot. Have a few microphones lying around that allow a computer to triangulate the source of the noise and within 1/10 second return fire. Seems like it would be pretty accurate since a person can't move too far in 1/10 second.

If you read TFA, you will learn that in fact the subject of the article, the JTAC, was on the day of the reporting experiencing jamming from equipment in the convoy. The reporter has the curiosity of a rock (or is scared Wired won't get another exclusive), so he doesn't elaborate, but I suspect he is referring to the Army's own IED jammers, i.e. the Warlock system. So if it is that easy for us to accidentally jam our own signals...

Love to know about this - there's no such thing as a 'secure frequency', if you know it, you can jam it. I'm assuming 'secure' here obviously means more than 'we've switched to a new one they can't guess' - hoping and there's some cool spread-spectrum, channel jumping geekness occurring, or even better some new tech way beyond the levels of current software-defined radio open source stuff that's ahead of the game.
I love radio - whether it be it cell phones, wifi, ham's bouncing signals off the moon or dis

you're forgetting that all this expensive technology was at least partially developed to avoid mistakes leading to civilian casualties.

At some point, people stop caring that the military is trying to avoid civilian casualties and just focus on the fact that they are causing civilian casualties. Especially given that most seem to happen because we're trying to limit friendly casualties, not win battles - that is, we could still win the battles, but at a higher cost, if we didn't use airstrikes.

There was a draft, but the boys who became the politicians managed either to avoid it or to get their dad to have them assigned to cushy, safe reserve jobs at home.

In a further touch of irony, the few politicians who *didn't* dodge that draft and signed up then had their patriotism questioned by the supporters of the draft dodgers, because they dared speak out against torture or war.

High oil prices are good for Texas as they subsidize their state government with healthy severance taxes on the market value [state.tx.us] of oil

High oil prices provide an excellent lever to use to force the opening of near-shore drilling as well as ANWR

The Bush Administration was so interested in seeing the right people make a lot of money that when energy prices really began getting out of control they flat-out refused [nytimes.com] to do anything about the hedge funds

My point being that the invasion of Iraq had NOTHING to do with lowering the price of energy, which would have been good for ALL of the American people; rather, it had to do with enabling a few people to increase their rate of wealth accumulation. Consider: The former objective is Democratic; the latter, Republican.

Well, I believe it; however, I'll pass on the title of "idiot". I would observe that the derogatory nature of your introduction of Al Gore into the conversation rather defines your position on the subject of environmental responsibility. No doubt you fall among those who believe that mankind is incapable of altering the world "because it is too big to affect", and so however man uses it or whatever man pumps into it is no big deal?

While I cannot say that this is true of you, I have found that people who h

Actually, I have been an Independent my whole life. I sound like a Democrat because the impact of the Republican policies of blocking all attempts to wean America from foreign oil, "flood-up/trickle-down" economics, deregulation, and inequitable free trade have so damaged America that I had no choice other than to recognize the fact that the Republicans are the greatest threat the American people have faced in our entire history.

Sure, the Republicans have seen to it that some few Americans have vastly increased their rate of wealth accumulation, but they've done so by taking it out of the American people's hide [benatlas.com].

I am, in fact, a six-year Army veteran; when the right - the Republicans - began to try to transform America from a democracy into a hereditary aristocracy of a few wealthy and many, many poor (to include such abominations as naming corporations as super-citizens with the rights accorded to a real American citizen multiplied by the wealth they can bring to bear) they named themselves my enemy according to the oath that I swore.

First-world countries don't go to war because of an economic factor, never have, and the burden of proof is on you to back your ignorant comment up.

9/11 involved 17 Saudi Arabian hijackers. Saudi Arabia is a monarchy ruled by an Islamic leader. Saudi Arabia has a terrible human rights record, doesn't allow non-muslims to testify in court, and allows young girls to be raped by old men through arranged marriages. Hardly a democratic paradise. So, why did we decide to invade Iraq? First, they said it was revenge for working with Al Qaeda, which is pure bullshit. Then it was WMD, which is also pure bullshit. Now it's to spread freedom and democracy, which yet again pure bullshit, otherwise we would have invaded Saudia Arabia for reasons one and three.

Short answer: Saudi Arabia plays ball, does what we tell them, and Saddam Hussein did not. Iraq also happens to sit on unexploited oil resources. Consider the headline, "West Sees Glittering Prizes Ahead in Giant Oilfields," printed in the London Times in 2002. That pretty much says it all.

If you like, I can go back through the history of just the United States for our wars, fought either for power or economic reasons. We invaded many Latin American countries because they kicked out US corporations and tried to reaffirm ownership of their own resources. We overthrew the democratic government of Iran in 1953 in Operation AJAX to restore British and American access to their resources, mostly oil. We invaded the Philippines after they refused our attempt to annex them in 1898 after the war with Spain, which also involved Cuba.

We have denied the right of nations to self rule for hundreds of years, beginning with the Native Americans, and even as I type, we are denying the rights of Iraqis and Afghanis the right to determine their own future. Economically, we strive to destroy local economies in order to enrich our own, from opening up agriculture markets in Mexico to put millions of poor farmers out of work, or opening up "free trade zones" to allow manufacturers to create something akin to a slave labor camp to push up their profit margins, and ship local jobs overseas.

First world countries are usually first world countries because they have raped and pillaged the third world for labor and resources. This was true for the British Empire, where the sun never set, and the Irish said because God would never trust the English in the dark. We are the new empire. We have over 750 military bases around the world trying to maintain our empire. You, just like many other Americans, are simply in denial about it.

There's a lot to like about this post, even though you are getting modded into oblivion, but I do want to point out the other side of _this_ coin:

We invaded many Latin American countries because they kicked out US corporations and tried to reaffirm ownership of their own resources.

The US and Great Britain spent a ton of money and intellectual power _developing_ those resources in the shit-hole backwards nations that had them. After _WE_ did the _real_ work (the thinking), and developed the resources, and t

Not fair to attack the individuals. They're regular people just doing what they're trained (and ordered) to do.

What they have volunteered to do.

While I am also uncomfortable with singling out the individuals who actually push the buttons which cause death, at some point we have to remember that the same "volunteer" military that has given the sons and daughters of wealth and privilege the ability to avoid being put in harm's way has also created a "warrior class" of people who for one reason or another, have chosen to participate in what are often the ugliest sanctioned acts that our society perpetrates, necessary or not.

It was the draft that created generations of Americans who each (except for the Dick Cheney's of the world, who will always find a way to get out of it somehow) have a direct connection to the defense of the country. It makes wars harder to start, when everyone is involved in a direct, physical way. The notion of a "professional" military class is in conflict with the beliefs of every single Founding Father, nearly all of whom believed that the US must never have a standing army, and that the kind of international adventurism which has defined all of our military actions since WWII should be avoided at all costs.

While it makes me uncomfortable to connect the faces of young American men and women with the sort of remote-control violence that much of our "wars" have become, it also makes me uncomfortable to say that those young men and women somehow had no moral involvement at all.

It's ugly business and I believe compulsory national service, like that of Israel or some European countries, is preferable to having professional soldiers who get "bonuses" for joining up and then get to wash their hands when innocents are killed.

You do have a point. I guess I'm worried about the veterans of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars experiencing the same demonization that happened to Vietnam vets. Speaking as someone who was actively involved in the anti-war movement of the Sixties and Seventies, that's the single aspect of the entire endeavor I'm not proud of.

You're right that they volunteered, but they did it either out of a sense of patriotism--possibly misplaced patriotism, but patriotism none the less--or economic necessity. I know a number of young people who joined up because they had no other prospects. BTW, I agree that some sort of compulsory national service is called for, but only if there's an option for non-military service allowed.

As far as young American men and women having no moral involvement, that's a tough call. The thing is, there's a reason beyond mere physical strength and endurance that compels the military to chose young people and that's the fact that human brains aren't fully developed until about age 25. Young people haven't yet acquired either the life experience or synapses to make wise judgements on fine points of morality. That's why young people do the dumb stuff they do, and why they deserve at least a little bit of slack in this case.

Thanks PopeRatzo and gyrogeerloose for having calm, rational, and civil points to make about this. My opinions are somewhere near or between you two and it's tough for me to grasp the complexity and the ethics of the battlefield. Clear, concise, and reasoned discussions are very much needed today.

I guess I'm worried about the veterans of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars experiencing the same demonization that happened to Vietnam vets.

Absolutely. There's a 30 year-old veteran of a couple of tours in Iraq in my tai chi class. His therapist suggested that the internal, relaxed nature of tai chi might help him with some of his PTSD, which is not as bad as some, still keeps him from sleeping and sometimes even wanting to go out. I see other peoples' reaction to him and wonder myself about what goes on in the

who order truck bomb after truck bomb against iraqi civilians, killing many orders of magnitude more than the us (and on purpose, as oppposed to mistake), and now increasingly in pakistan and afghanistan, then i will listen to you

or more exactly, when you develop an ability to actually stop those guys, then i will listen to you

and i already known your answer: its all the fault of western imperialism, neocolonialism, oilthirst, etc

fella: if the usa turned into a giant lake tomorrow, the madmen bombing in the

So because one group of people are killing Iraqi^WAfghanistani civilians, then that makes it OK for another group, e.g. the US military, to do so? Even better, if one group kills civilians then that makes it OK for the US military to kill more of them in order to protect and bring peace to them?

That's some of the most ridiculous logic I've yet read from you, in all your years of posting your daft war-apologia comments on K5 and here.

Oh, note that things got much, much better in Basra once the UK forces decided to hand over to the local Iraqis and withdrew to their base at the airport. Similar thing when control was handed over in areas like al-Anbar and Najaf.

It is the *presence* of the western forces, and particularly their attempts to project themselves, which is the catalyst for most of the violence!

Except that group are killing civilians because you are fighting them.

But they don't have to do that, so how is this any justification?

Further, even when you're not fighting them you're conducting patrols that regularly:

- go into Afghani homes uninvited

- turn everything over

- on the odd occasion shoot a member of the compound cause they happen to do something that makes a twitchy soldier nervous

No offense but every poll I've seen has a majority of Afghan citizens supporting the US presence. So all your bullet points make no sense at all. The militants aren't the ones having their furniture overturned, and that's not why they're fighting.

Further, you're working to create a police force and army which are:

- largely composed of Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazara

- in the case of the police force particularly, extremely corrupt

You're then sending these forces down into Pashtun country, to help keep "order" over people who don't trust them.

Let's call that what it is -- empowering minorities who were being oppressed before.

I mean I'm honestly pretty disgusted that you bring this up. The Hazaras for instance are a sad group of people who

"Suicide and IED attacks caused more civilian casualties than any other tactic, killing1,054 civilians, or 44% of the total civilian casualties in 2009. Although such attackshave primarily targeted government or international military forces, they are oftencarried out in areas frequented by civilians."

I reiterate my disgust with people who practice the double-think of justifyi

Your post is alarmingly racist and misguided and I am sad that slashdot modded it up to +5 Insightful. From what you said all I sense is fear. Fear of the infinite unknowns of a world so far attached from your beloved America. Fear of a culture no where near parallel to your own. Fear that you may be wrong in your hatred towards these people. You stereotype an entire people as bloodthirsty heathens when it is a tiny minority that are causing problems. By reacting to the bullies we are inciting the bullies.

there isn't a shred anything remotely racist in anything i said. the tragedy is someone modded you up for hurling a smear which is completely bullshit

and the rest of your post, you are responding to some sort of bogeyman that resembles absolutely nothing about what i said. try talking to me and what i say, instead of the demons in your head which i don't actually resemble, asshole

Compulsory national service, at least in the history of the United States, leads to poor services and terrible morale.

Having a tiny professional service that is bolstered by a draft isn't a good way to respond quickly either, look at World War 1 and 2, the small US professional services that were then bolstered by conscripts were slow to react, often poorly trained and often ineffectual.

The US declared war on the Central Powers in the spring of 1917, yet large formations were not available until the summer and fall of 1918. US build up for the Second World War began in the spring of 1940 and large units weren't available for Europe until the fall of 1942.

Large conscript armies, like the Cold War era US military from 1946-1975 were morale pits and many were combat ineffective when sent into combat in Korea and Vietnam.

The idea that it is harder to start a war if everyone has served is ridiculous, the Soviets were more than happy to sent young men into combat from Hungary, Czechoslovakia ad Afghanistan while the Americans, Israelis, British and French all had World War Two experienced leadership yet began adventures abroad.

The Founders of the United States could envision a nation without a standing army, they had a sea to protect them. Today a bomber can destroy Boston after a flight of 10 hours from Murmansk.

Compulsory national service, at least in the history of the United States, leads to poor services and terrible morale

"Poor services" that helped win WWII, by the way.

You're probably right, Wyatt, that compulsory service is not ideal when building a fighting force, but remember, our military is supposed to exist for the country's well-being, not the other way around. We are not Sparta, we are a civil society, not designed for everlasting war. Hell, we're not even supposed to have a standing army at all, if

Compulsory national service, at least in the history of the United States, leads to poor services and terrible morale.

We might be doing it wrong. Switzerland and Israel don't seem to have poor services and terrible morale. Personally I think it sounds like a good idea, but we have to change our implementation. First of all, you can't have compulsory service ONLY in times of war. That's basically admitting that you just need fuel for the meat grinder. The point of compulsory service is to be trained in advance and ready to go.

Second of all, we need to make being in the army more respectable in society. I'm not sure how to a

but there are some who volunteer for the military because they want to ensure that if in the unlikely event the United States does face some sort of external threat

Oh, I agree, absolutely. I would say that most probably volunteer with that in mind.

But that is just too much to ask of only one segment of our society. And the last thing we want as a country is to be so comfortably removed from the realities of the world, by allowing this very small group to take the responsibility upon themselves. If a war

If you are saying that those who were affected by a draft are less likely to wage war in the future

No, I'm saying that when it's your own son or daughter that stands a chance to end up blown to pieces in some desert or jungle, it makes you think a little bit before voting to engage in unnecessary foreign entanglements.

GPs point is that, if you had compulsory national service, then maybe (just maybe, this is U.S. after all) you'd have a much more honest government, and particularly when it comes to being trigger-happy.

It's one thing to be hawkish when the issue at hand is basically when you're debating whether to send mercenaries overseas. It's another when everyone voting has the well-being of their children at stake in a very direct and obvious way.

Who knows, if you had conscription, perhaps Bush would have never been e

Those recent revelations? You are referring to the video from wikileaks? I only saw two innocents - and they were dragged into a battle site by the opposition. Nice try at making villians of our guys though.

Please draw a moral distinction between: the side who goes to great pains to avoid casualties, versus the side whose stated goals are the massacre of innocents. Analyze the goals of each side and tell us why intentionally killing innocents helps or hinders each side. Bonus points for including the phrase "Bu$hitler".

Regardless of the rightness of the occuptation, the Wired piece was naive military cheerleading. No attempt was made to do any investigation beyond the tidbits that the Army/AF doled out to the reporter. I think it was also pretty obvious from the text that he was no war correspondent.

Wired is not exactly known for getting U.S. military exclusives, so no doubt they jumped at this chance. But the text of the article was actually no more technical than I would have expected from some random NYT stringer. Secure frequencies? I think he also got a little confused about the strict meaning of "going kinetic." A Wired reporter got this story because he would be unqualified and uncritical.

Even if you fully support (ahem) "bringing democracy to the people of Afghanistan," you can't seriously claim you just read anything but a military press release.

Yes, you are totally right. I mean it's not like Afghanistan was ever at war before in their history! They were a country never in conflict and always at peace. (end sarcasm) Actually it was the other way around. In the last several decades the "peaceful years" could be counted on one hand. The Coalition forces definitely try to avoid casualties of innocents as much as possible as it hurts the long term goals of the operation there. The same could not be said for the various opposing forces. For them the mo

It means you can drop large quantities of high-explosives and other munitions on a country, paralleling the total tonnage dropped in WWII on Germany, in the full knowledge there *will* be many civilian deaths - both immediate and over time (e.g. from the bomblets from cluster bombs, and various toxic effects of phosporus, DU, etc) and then say "Ah, but our intentions were noble". This logic is made doubly delicious when at the same time you claim that the insurgency side is "evil" because

claim that the insurgency side is "evil" because they set off bombs knowing they will kill civilians, even if they do so against military targets (convoys, bases, etc).

But that's complete bullshit. Many of their attacks are not against military targets. Many of them are just in the middle of a market place. Many of them are against targets like schools. Many of them are against political targets who they see as betraying their own country. What's your response to all that, just to ignore it and focus on the minority of attacks that are successfully carried out against military targets? You are completely ignoring the degrees on both side.

I doubt the soldiers on the ground, the JTAC or the pilots are trying to hurt civilians (maybe a few really are, you can never really know). When the soldiers on the ground are in danger, the stress and need for quick action can easily make it hard to coordinate these airstrikes properly. If anyone is to blame, it is the higher-ups who set the policies and training procedures, and decide who should be piloting or calling in the strikes.

Using an engineering analogy, it's like an engineer designing a brake system that has unexpected failures (Toyota's specific problem is too rare to be a good analogy). The drivers who get people killed aren't at fault- they did as they were trained (through driver's ed/experience), but the system failed and people die. While no one was malicious about it, if anyone you have to blame the engineer for designing a faulty system, and to a lesser extent the government for not training drivers to better handle exceptional circumstances. The engineer has the responsibility to fix the braking system and ensure the faulty braking system is no longer used.

We make a huge deal out of civilian casualties- and we should- but I expect our military is putting more effort into balancing saving soldiers lives and saving civilian lives than any previous effort by any military since the development of long-range artillary. If we assume the military loves blowing things up as much as they can (which you seem to imply), they would still want to minimize civilian casualties. The better their track record is, the more freedom they have to keep using bombs at will. Unless you've performed these airstrikes yourself you shouldn't assume it's as easy as video games make you think.

If you enter a country whose inhabitants have a very very long track-record of not liking foreigners coming in and ordering them about; if you stay there for nearly a decade with only an ever-growing insurgency (just like against the Russians, and the British and...) to show for it; with ever increasing numbers of civilian casualties due to the chaos; with no real military objectives anymore; then as occupying power over that near-decade you bear a great responsibility for the situation ther

Really? As if they don't pour over anything they might find left over on the battlefield? They (Al Queso, et al) are not stupid, even if they are social and cultural backasses, even in the Islamic world. They're probably getting some I2 help from some of our "friends" as well as enemies as well... if the govment ok'd it, that toothpaste has already been squished out of the tube long ago. and it's not too hard to read AvLeak, Janes's publications, etc. and put two and two together, either.